Smell that New Carpet!

Well, the new carpet is fabulous! We are loving the basemnent. Jason impressed us all with a cartwheel when he came home on Monday and saw the carpeted basement. He and I have stayed up till 2:00 am for the last two nights, finishing up the tile and stuff. Jason insists that we not move anything downstairs until all the little finishing touches are DONE. He is afraid we will never finish the little things if we start moving in down there. So this is killing me and I am pushing him to get it done. Here are some pictures of the Family Room:

Ky's room is behind the door on the opposite side of this room. The uncarpeted, messy room here is going to be Jason's Wood Working room and a storage room. Right now it is piled high with boxes and stuff. Here are some pictures of the tiled area.

The doorway on the left is a just a large storage closet. Jason is going to put shelves in there for me. The other doorway is the bathroom and on the right is where our little kitchenette will go. Here is a better picture of the kitchen area and the bathroom. Kate is modeling where the toilet will be...

And last, but not least, the den which I am most excited about because that means I can get this computer and desk out of my bedroom...

And there you have it. This weekend we hope to finish the doors and outlets and then start moving some stuff down there. It has been a very exciting week. This is a project that started about two years ago. Yay for Jason for doing this for me! Well, okay for us. He is pretty stoked to put up his projector and speakers too.

TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR

Okay, these are the pictures we took the other night when we went to the park for our volleyball game and found out that our VB net was burried in about 6 feet of water. We took some other pictures too, but they are on my phone and I am not going to transfer them over anytime soon. This picture above is a picture of the pavilion at the JMBA (a private park owned by Jason's company.) This pavilion is actually built on stilts to prevent this kind of flooding. Bummer. Here are a few more photos of the JMBA.

The water went down quickly, though. These photo's were taken on June 9th, and yesterday, (the 23rd) the water was gone and they had a fresh load of sand brought in for our sand volleyball game. We won too! Our first win! We have a team made up of members of our ward who all work for SCJ. We call ourselves "Jerry's kids" named after our old bishop (Who is also on our team.) We are having a lot of fun with that and the kids love to come and play at the park during our games.

AND here is a photo of Will, who recently noticed that he did not have ANY pictures on our blog.

And below is a picture of Will outside with Pip and the bucket behind him is full of crayfish that he and the neighbor kids caught in our neighborhood pond. This is an everyday thing for Will. He loves catching bugs and frogs and tadpoles and crayfish, minnows, turtles, etc.

We are off this weekend to Jellystone Park for our Annual Neighborhood Campout. I will surely be posting some pictures of that next week.

Summer cuts

We are loving summer! The girls went to the salon with me yesterday for "a trim" and ended up getting a cute little summer cut. Kate went first and got her hair chopped and Kiley liked Kate's hair so much that she wanted the same thing done on her hair. They look so cute and Kate's haircut makes her look so grown up! She was very worried that dad and Will would not like her haircut. She was relieved when they loved it.

Tonight Kiley is off to her "Camp Rock party" at a friends house. She loves those Jonas Brothers! The rest of us are headed to Milwaukee for the "members night" at the zoo. They will let us feed and pet the stingrays and sharks. The boys are all over that! Then Saturday we have our last chance to get our tile and woodwork done in our basement. The carpet installation guys will be there next week to put in our carpet and then I can have my house back!!!





In other news, Jason had to participate in this 50 year anniversary for Pledge. He had a Elvis costume made entirely out of Pledge duster cloths (including the wig) and he had a co-worker dress up in the pledge costume that looks like a huge can of pledge. I am going to try to download a video of his practice run - where he was singing happy birthday to just a can of pledge - Elvis style. Pretty funny. Bad quality camera, though.

We can see the end in sight. Only 4 more days of school. The kids are loving this week with all the field trips, awards assemblies, and cleaning out locker type stuff. Baseball is getting pretty crazy but we enjoy spending the evenings at the baseball diamonds. Primary stuff seems to never end. I have a teacher inservice on Sunday that I am in charge of. Also, Jason is taking the boys to the Stake Father/Son outing this weekend. I think Lara is coming over to hang out with me and the girls while our hubbies are camping with the boys. Pride and Predjudice night perhaps? Lara just had a baby girl (Lucy) We had a big baby shower here at my house for her.

Hmm. I just realized that Lara actually isn't really in any of those pictures. Let me see if I can find a picture of Lara...

Here we are mini golfing with Mike and Lara Meier. These are our good friends here. We do a lot with them. I hate these pictures, though!

Other news. Well, Kiley got a part in her Jr. High play, OZ. She got the part of one of the main munchkins, LOQ. She did so good. Here are a few photo's.

Here She is as LOQ:

And as a Poppy:

And she is totally going to kill me for this, but Jason even took a couple of the guy she likes. He was a flying monkey. Kam, remember when we were flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz?
Okay. It is way past my bedtime. I will write more next week.

Okay, Amber and Kamber are harassing me about updating my blog that is a year old and only been used once. I actually started this blog as a church assignment but I suppose I could write occasionally. Things are going good here and I have been busy with piano lessons, baseball games and primary stuff. We have also been working on finishing our basement here and when that is done I will be so HAPPY! I can move this computer out of my bedroom and downstairs and I will also have some storage space, a big Family Room and kitchenette, extra bathroom, bedroom for Kiley, etc. Here are some before pictures, with the after to follow in hopefully just about a month. We have been painting down there and got the doors installed over the long weekend. What a huge project.

Kate is done with Preschool now and she is bored already. Ky, Will and James have 2 weeks left. We had a nice Memorial weekend and went and played baseball with friends Monday night. We are looking forward to a trip home to Idaho in July for James' baptism. Okay a few more pictures. We got a puppy. He is a mix between and Chawawa and a Daschund. They call him a chaweanie. His name is Pip. He is so sweet and cuddly.

So we are all doing great and having fun here. Here are some recent photos of the kids.

Relocating with small children

My daughter is in 5th grade. I was just realizing that she has attended 8 different elementary and preschools in her short life. I guess you could say we have done our share of moving around. Some of these schools she attended for up to 2 years, others just a few months. We are now settled for at least a few years. While I would not recommend this kind of constant relocation for young children, circumstances beyond your control might force you to move your children around from school to school more than you want to.

I have 4 young children and because of school and work, we have done our share of moving in our first 12 years of marriage. There are ways that you can ease the stress and anxiety for your children. My children actually have loved everywhere we have lived and they enjoy the opportunity we've had to see and live in so many different areas and witness other cultures first hand. If you find yourself needing to prepare for a move, here are some helpful tips to keep in mind as you are making preparations.

• Your young children will pick up on any feelings (hidden or not) that you might have about the move. Your enthusiasm will be contagious. You have to prepare yourself and look for the positive in this move.
• Get online and see what fun things there are to do in your new town. (before the move.) Talk about ideas with your children and sit down as a family and make plans with the information you have found on your new hometown. Maybe make a list of the nearby places you want to visit within the first year of living in the new city. Children's Museums, Zoos, Aquariums, Parks, Beaches, nearby water parks or theme parks. Listen to the individual interests of each family member and make sure everyone gets to contribute. Show them pictures online. Take this opportunity to set some goals for making family time a priority with this new move and plan to make some fun memories together in and near your new hometown.
• Do some research on the wildlife and talk about what you expect to discover. My kids were thrilled when they saw their first firefly. (So was I).
• Let your children help you search for housing online. I know that looking at houses online is not ideal because it is hard to get the full picture, but it is exciting to initially see what is out there and in your price range. Children might enjoy looking at some virtual tours and dreaming of their new bedroom, toy room or backyard.
• Let them assist in researching schools. I am a big believer in finding a good school for my kids. I will definately choose a home depending on the school district. (This may be why we have moved schools so much. It took me till this year to find the school we all love!)
• Depending on the age of your children, they might be interested in researching local shopping and restaurant venues.
• Try to assure your children that you will come back and visit friends and family as often as you can reasonably commit to. Set a time frame if possible for the next trip back to visit those you are leaving behind.

I absolutely love moving. I don't know what it is with me, but I love seeing new places and the excitement at moving to a new home. Luckily for me, my children have inherited my love for traveling and living other places. I am sure as they grow older I will get more resistance, but so far we have loved all the cities we have lived in and the countries we've been able to live in or visit. If you find yourself moving, the key is to be enthusiastic and if you don't feel enthusiastic, find some thing(s) to be excited about and try to make it an exciting time for your family. There is so much children can learn from moving and making those adjustments. Help them understand how these transitions can help them to become stronger and see things from a larger view. Validate their concerns, but help them understand that your family will grow stronger through this move and that they will meet people and have experiences that will help them become a stronger individual.